Teacher’s Assistant
I have very good news. After three months of searching, I started a job in late November as a long-term teacher’s assistant at a charter elementary school in the Bronx. The assistant principal (AP) who hired me told me that my primary responsibility is to help one student. Eventually, this student won’t need my help, and the AP said there’s plenty of work for me here as a roving substitute or tutor. The student has had some severe behavioral problems, occasionally violent and often defiant. She has wide emotional swings, sometimes breaking out crying spontaneously. I enjoy the work very much. I feel honored that the school expects me to be capable of doing this. I don’t even understand how they knew anything about me. In my work with the student, I’m getting results that none of the other teachers has gotten. My student is improving in reading, writing, math, and in her behavior. I’ve developed a relationship with her, and she trusts me and listens to me. I don’t know her story, but